Strength 99999 but the Holy Sister

"Um... Tricia... let's go in together..."

Charlie extended her hand to Tricia. Tricia was slightly surprised, pursed her lips and smiled, and followed Charlie.

Tricia cast a lighting spell, and the cave suddenly became as bright as day. Charlie then discovered that the passage in the cave was not very wide. There were no signs of animal life around, and there was no obvious odor. However, it gave Charlie an uncomfortable feeling. The entrance of the cave was tortuous, and at the deep end there were four neat walls - it was obvious that this was a place dug out by humans.

"Judging from the height of the corridor's design, the people who come here are probably not just humans, and it may not even be designed for humans at all."

Tricia said.

And if you walk to the middle, you will find roads leading from other directions.

Tricia releases her familiar in snake form to explore.

They continued walking forward, and after a while they finally arrived at a hall. Although it had collapsed long ago, after a simple cleaning by Tricia, they could still vaguely see that this place seemed to have been a place similar to a conference hall. Even though it seemed to have been cleaned up by someone and there were no obvious clues left at this time, there were still many traces on the ground and walls, and it was obvious that many people had gathered here.

"Such a rich scent..."

Elsa's gaze fell on the corner in front of the cave, where there was a strange crack in the ground.

This time even Tricia noticed something and she walked over.

Charlie looked around.

At this moment, Xia Li suddenly heard a voice: "It seems that the wall here...ah...collapsed..."

Elsa and Tricia saw the wall in front of Charlie crumble into pieces, revealing thick gray-black veins like tree roots behind it. Seeing that thing, Tricia narrowed her eyes.

"As expected... Aisha, the aura you sensed is the aura of the earth veins—only they are now withered."

Tricia raised her hand, and the walls around her peeled off inch by inch, revealing an area surrounded by large areas of thick tree roots.

"No wonder this cave is so deep—this is the main leyline beneath the Alba Mountains."

"Is this the leyline?"

Charlie swallowed, her eyes wide open as she carefully examined the gray-black veins in front of her.

"But why are there so many holes on it...it's like it's been eaten by insects..."

"Hole?"

Tricia walked forward and observed carefully. Sure enough, there were many small holes on the surface of the roots of the earth veins, only one or two fingers thick. They were densely packed, like the trunk of a diseased tree that had been eaten away by insects.

This made Tricia frown.

At this time, Aisha's voice came from behind again.

"Tricia, there used to be a magic circle here, but it seems to have been erased."

Tricia turned around and saw Elsa squatting on the ground, digging her fingertips into the rock and picking out a piece of stone - a very faint purple-black mark appeared on the stone.

"Weiweian taught me in the underground palace—she said these marks were left by the burning of the magic crystal, right?"

……

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441. West Wind Brigade in the Snowy Mountains (6K)

When rocks are immersed in rich magic elements, they will more or less pick up some of the magic elements' characteristics, and thus appear light blue-black or purple-black.

Tricia picked up the stone from the ground, looked at it briefly, and nodded.

"The magic circle here is a bit 'old,' or rather, it looks like it's been through multiple magical infernos to reach its current form. It's certain a magical ritual was once performed here. However, since quite a while has passed, the magical energy has completely dissipated, and I can't determine the function of the circle based on the remaining magic energy. However, I can reconstruct its general outline based on the traces here, but this will take some time."

"You can infer the magic circle based on just these traces? Tricia... you're truly amazing..."

Charlie adores Tricia.

Elsa noticed that the distance between Charlie and Tricia seemed to be gradually narrowing since she didn't know when it started. When they just set out from Dammas a few days ago, Charlie was still very nervous when facing Tricia, and only dared to call her "Sage" in a low voice.

Tricia shook her head. "It can only be used for a rough observation. Too much time has passed. I can only give it a try. I don't know what the success rate is."

Aisha said: "Anyway, this is an important clue. Let's give it a try. Maybe we'll get something out of it."

"It's just... I find it very strange," Tricia said suddenly. "Logically, the caster is clearly a powerful sorcerer. He couldn't have been unaware of what these marks mean. If he wanted to cover up everything here, he couldn't have failed to notice them. But why didn't he erase the traces? It's hard to imagine a senior wizard making such an oversight."

Aisha observed the rubble around her. "This place has indeed been damaged, but the damage is not complete."

"Anyway, let's give it a try," Tricia said, putting the stone back in its place. "Elsa, Charlie, I'll ask you to help me continue to check around. Leave this to me."

Charlie stood at the exit of the tunnel, and Elsa came to the front of the earth vein. This was the second time Elsa saw the earth vein, but this time it was very different from the last time. Elsa observed the dense holes on the dead earth vein roots.

Tricia stood alone in the center of the cave. After taking a brief look around, she gently raised her hand. As a visible ripple of azure magic spread around her, the dust and gravel on the ground were peeled off layer by layer. Tricia's magic control was very precise, just like a chisel in the hands of a skilled master, gradually revealing the full picture of a piece of ground that had long been covered and shattered by rubble, and "putting" the damaged stones back to their original place little by little. Then it became smooth, and the rough surface was visibly worn away little by little, revealing the blue-black marks on the inner layer.

The deeper you go into the inner layer, the lighter and shallower the blue-black marks become, but also thinner. The originally intertwined lines gradually become clearer, and then are marked by Tricia using magic.

About ten minutes later, the entire cave had changed dramatically - under Tricia's magic, the entire cave was as smooth as a mirror, and a huge magic circle was left on the ground.

At this moment, Elsa suddenly said, "This magic circle is a bit like what Vivian, Mary, and I encountered in the underground palace before—the work of those vampires, but this one looks much more sophisticated."

"It seems that the direction we are tracking is correct. It is probably no coincidence that these things appear here."

Tricia took out the magic stone and recorded everything here in detail.

Elsa continued to observe the ley lines.

It's really strange. It is said that the earth's veins are stronger than one can imagine. Then how did these densely packed holes on the surface of the earth's veins come about?

After thinking for a moment, Elsa raised her hand and gently pressed on the surface of the earth vein, stroking it gently. The earth vein looked like a handicraft made of some turbid gel, but it gave people a very heavy and rough touch like tree bark. When she tapped it lightly with her fingers, the impact sound of the cavity was very obvious.

She exerted a little force, and her fingertips sank inch by inch. A crisp cracking sound was heard, and spider-web-like cracks spread.

Elsa did not continue to press her finger down, but observed the fingerprints she left behind. Unlike other holes, the small hole Elsa poked did not even penetrate the earth veins, leaving only a small pit with cracks all around it, which was completely different from those holes of different sizes.

It seemed that those holes were not drilled by brute force like Elsa did.

Elsa observed them again. The reason why Charlie called those holes "worm-eaten" was because they were extremely irregular. Except for the relatively flat openings, they began to bend and twist as they extended inward, which was completely different from the straight holes drilled by Elsa.

Those holes did look like traces of insect bites, or rather, like something had gnawed away at and penetrated the earth veins bit by bit.

Elsa put her ear close to it and tapped gently, carefully distinguishing the vibration of the sound. To Elsa's surprise, the internal cavity of the earth vein seemed to be very large and echoing, just like standing in a long and narrow twisting tunnel - and, although it was not obvious, Elsa could hear the faint sound of air flowing.

Is there air flow inside?

Elsa frowned slightly.

She thought for a moment, then scraped the tiny holes with her fingernails, and some crystalline powder fell down. Elsa sniffed it and smelled a faint scent of magic, somewhat like the smell of magic ore - and behind Elsa, Tricia's eyes widened.

She was recording the magic circle while also watching Elsa, and then she saw Elsa scratching a dent on the surface of the earth vein with her fingernails.

That's an earth vein. Even if it's dead, its hardness is at the level of a quasi-sacred object. How can such a thing be scratched with fingernails?

However, Elsa scraped off another layer as if she was sharpening her nails.

Elsa didn't think too much about it. She carefully observed the small "worm-eaten" hole and saw that the path of the hole extending inward had changed, twisted, and became slightly thinner.

After scraping another layer, Elsa suddenly saw a sharp corner branching out from the small hole. Scraping further, the sharp corner branched out into another small hole - then, there were more and more such small holes, densely packed, branching out around the initial small hole and extending in different directions... At this time, Elsa had scraped a deep hole of more than nine centimeters on the surface of the earth vein. Her fingers were only so long, and she couldn't dig any deeper unless she punched through the entire earth vein. But until now, she still hadn't dug the small hole to the bottom, and hadn't even scraped through the surface of the earth vein.

Is the surface layer of the earth vein so thick?

Aisha narrowed her eyes and stared at the tiny "worm-eaten" holes.

Calling it a wormhole isn't quite right. Rather, it's more like... a tree root? A tree root growing on a ley line?

Elsa immediately thought of something, the black dead branches - there were also such things in the underground magic circle of Dammas. Tricia once said that those things were absorbing the power of the earth veins.

By this time, Tricia had finished recording the magic circle and came to Elsa's side. She took a closer look at the pit Elsa had dug and swallowed hard, feeling incredible. She then looked at Elsa's hands. Her fingers were still clean and white, and her nails, which were always trimmed to leave little white space, were still beautiful and translucent.

It makes people want to hold Elsa's hand.

"Elsa, your hand..."

"what happened?"

"Is your hand okay?"

Tricia seemed about to say something, but swallowed it back. She really wanted to know how Elsa usually trimmed her nails. Could nails that could dig a hole in the earth's veins really be trimmed? But after thinking about it, Tricia felt that asking such a question seemed strange.

"Nothing... I just think your hands are so beautiful, and your fingers are so slender..."

"Oh?" Aisha smiled, "Thank you for the compliment."

Tricia isn't the first woman to say this.

Tricia always felt that Elsa's eyes seemed to have a deep meaning, so she didn't think much about it and changed the subject.

"Did you find anything?"

Elsa didn't continue, but just said, "I've made some discoveries. Look, underneath these holes are actually densely packed branches. They look more like traces of tree roots than insect bites, don't they?"

"Black dead branches?"

Tricia also thought of it immediately - wasn't the reason they came to the North to track down clues about the black dead branches and the mysterious man?

"Also, I suspect this cave isn't the only one. I can sense the sound of wind flowing through the ley lines."

"In that case, let's cut it open and see."

"Is that okay?"

"The ley lines here are already dead. Even if they are cut open, it doesn't matter. After thousands of years, the ley lines will grow again. These dead ley lines will only leave behind their shells and will not be reused by the ley lines again."

Just like a growing tree, a branch that has completely withered will no longer sprout new buds.

"Well, let me try."

In this case, Elsa had no reason to be polite. She directly took out the giant sword of the War Demon General, and Tricia also took a few steps back.

She saw Elsa raise the giant sword with one hand, and with a seemingly light blow, the stone wall shattered, and the whole cave shook. Countless stones fell and were swept into the corners by Tricia's magic. As the stones collapsed and the dust dissipated, a thick earth vein that required more than ten people to hug appeared in front of Elsa and Tricia - like the trunk of a fallen thousand-year-old tree.

A huge gap was split open in the middle of the earth vein by the giant sword - it was more like it was smashed open than split open. Both sides of the gap were completely shattered, and it looked like a branch that was broken off abruptly, with pieces of debris at the break.

Elsa looked at the ley lines in front of her and couldn't help but be a little surprised. It turned out that most of the ley lines were buried behind the rocks. The true appearance of the ley lines was even larger than she had imagined.

"Wow... is this the full picture of the ley lines?"

Charlie heard the vibration and came over.

"This is the main vein. Generally speaking, only the main vein is this thick..."

As she spoke, Tricia's eyes were a little complicated. What she didn't say was that the main vein was also the toughest part, but Elsa cut the entire main vein into pieces with just one blow - even if it was a dead earth vein, the power contained in it was hard for her to imagine.

Elsa put away her weapon and observed. The cross-section of the earth vein was uneven because it was smashed. Elsa felt it carefully and could smell the smell of miasma in the air.

Tricia had already created a purification spell to protect her and Charlie.

"So this is the structure inside the earth veins..." Xia Li was very curious.

Elsa lifted her foot and stepped into the middle of the earth vein. She broke off the protruding sharp parts with her bare hands and then drilled into the earth vein. The earth vein was hollow and large enough for several people to stand and walk. Tricia and Charlie also followed in.

The inside of the earth vein is very cold, very quiet, and pitch black, like a winding cave corridor, but there is a faint eerie humming sound.

“You can definitely feel the wind here.”

"Me too……"

The earth veins are buried deep underground and are winding. Generally speaking, there will be no sound of wind inside the earth veins. If there is any sound, it must be because some part of the earth veins has been severely damaged, and even so, it should be very weak.

"Let's move forward."

Elsa walked in front, moving forward along the main vein. Tricia used lighting magic to illuminate the interior. She looked around and saw densely packed tiny holes, but those holes disappeared after leaving the cave area. It seemed that those holes were made inside the cave.

Continuing forward, the earth veins sometimes twist and turn, sometimes rise and sometimes fall, and are rugged. Occasionally, you can see the intersection where the branches converge.

"If we continue to go deeper along the leyline, will we reach the 'heart' of the leyline?"

Aisha suddenly asked.

"If the theory is correct, it should be possible, but everyone who has tried so far has failed. No one can withstand the strong pressure of magic."

Continuing forward, as the hollow sound of her footsteps became crisper, Elsa stopped and looked around. The walls of the earth veins here were also covered with those fine holes. The difference was that the earth veins here were actually broken, with gravel pressing on the broken ends, leaving only a small amount of gaps exposed.

"Where exactly is this place... As expected, there are more than one cave, and it seems that this place has been destroyed."

Tricia's eyes grew serious.

Elsa raised her foot and pierced the earth vein directly, then tore it apart with her bare hands and pushed the rock out. Tricia also used magic to crush the rock and pushed it away. Charlie turned into a blood mist and drilled out, carrying the rock away from the outside. After a while, they found themselves in a cave again.

Looking back at the broken earth vein, Tricia discovered that the area near the broken ground vein was littered with debris from the vein wall. Looking closely, she could see dense, deep and shallow scratches on the surface of the vein - those scratches were very regular, like a spinning top with a blade that was constantly chopped. It looked like someone had cut the earth vein in half with a knife, but it seemed that they lacked skill and strength, just like an inexperienced lumberjack who always chopped the wood into pieces.

Tricia's face fell.

But Aisha noticed something else with her sharp eyes - she walked forward and bent down.

Charlie followed.